Camping

We went camping with dear friends just out of Seattle. Close to the tulalip outlets at a lake called lake goodwin. 

We spent our time relaxing, reading, child minding, playing with toys and having ridiculous amounts of incredible cuddles.

Beckham is not very good at keeping blankets on at night so he landed up in our bed most nights-I won't deny that I loved every second. He is so sweet and snuggly. By the end of the trip he would run into our bed and laugh knowing that I was soft and would let him in our bed. I was worried that when we got home we would be in trouble thinking we would have to break him from sleeping with us-little did I know he was just as ready for his crib as I was for my 'real bed'

We has a wonderful time and the kids played hard with all the other children. Audrey really picked up 'biking' there was flat cement so she really got quite good after 5 days. Makes me wanna put her in one of those 'balance bike' groups.

Then I realized preschool is around the corner and I need to adjust to that first.

Landscaping phase 1

Today is the first day where work was slow enough that Brent could work from home. Landscaping phase 1 begins. Hello dirt, hello chaos. That's all good though because it brings us one step closer to our home being finished 

Othello Tunnels

The other day we took our babies to the Othello Tunnels just past hope.

It was awesome. Totally toddler friendly and fun. We really have enjoyed spending time as a family this summer. So many more fun things to do now that our babies aren't quite as baby anymore. We adore it.

The othello tunnels were amazing. Very cool to see. The kids LOVED walking in the dark...and echoing there voices.

There are couple 'unsafe' cliffs lol that I was worried my babies might fling themselves over. I for sure was sweating lol maybe just a stress sweat...like don't be the family that needs to call 911 at the othello tunnels. My babies are such risk takers and just want to be 'big kids' and so it all by themselves. It's a hard balance giving them freedom without having an anxiety attack.

I turned to Brent at one point and said 'we aren't ready for the capilano suspension bridges...he just laughed and agreed.

It was all in all a fabulous afternoon. It was beautiful, fun, great weather and a super fun adventure. Best of all no sleeping in the car so we still had naptime when we got home!!!

Good morning babies

This morning Audrey and Beckham ran down the stairs. As I heard the pitter patter of there feet coming down the stairs I prepared myself for them jumping into bed and making a 'mommy sandwich' haha that's there new thing. They jump on my when Audrey yells 'mommy sandwich' hahaha

To my surprise that's not what happened. Audrey flicked the lights on in my room and her and Beckham started to rock out and serenade me with the baby musical guitar. It was adorable, loud, hilarious, loud and so darling 

Brent's Snoring

In the last year Brent's body decided it didn't want me to sleep anymore and wanted to keep me up via snoring.

I have named his snores

-the wheeze

-the weed-eater

-the lawn mower

-the car rev

-the old man

-the sneaky snore (random loud ones intermittently...just when you thought it was over)

-the  hands above his head death snore of doom

I'm not sleeping as good obviously. I'm not alone-Brent gets kicked, rolled over, pushed and hushed. 

Sometimes I wish I could put his head in a sound proof plastic box...while his head is still attached to his body...obviously...also with ventilation...obviously.

This is the beginning isn't it? First step in becoming an old married couple...or just old. Oh mercy. 

If he had one solid kind of snoring all at the same decibels I could handle it. I can sleep through most things. It's the random and constantly changing snores that slaughter my sleep. It's worse then newborns. There is no cuteness in this. 

I think he needs to be intubated  at night. Problem solved right? Now explaining to Brent why I need to buy a 'life support' machine lol for his snoring might be an interesting conversation. 'I just really think if there are tubes down your throat we will both sleep better...' *grin*

Hi I'm almost 2-part2

You know when he doesn't make eye contact that it truly was him eating and consuming the wooden spoon in the kids play kitchen. That might be a painful one! Yikes-some days I think I could write a funny book with these kids being the stars. 

Audrey&Colors

Audrey hates colors.

Brent and I think she is color blind.

Really, we do. 

She is resistant to learn them.

She thinks its hilarious to say the wrong one.

She is SO smart. She loves to learn and absorbs EVERYTHING!! She knows the names of all the colors but can't actually match them. This is the only thing that has been 'hard' to teach her. 

Desperate times.

We are doing a color a week until she has it down. Painting, face paint, colouring, food color, anything messy and colorful.

This week RED!

I'm still confident she's color blind lol.

She now says 'red' for everything we ask but wether she can actually differentiate between colors is to be determined. 

I resisted algebra....if her thing is colors I think we can all feel safe to say she will survive.  

Beckham's almost TWO

Beckham.

Our calm (cough stubborn cough) child

He is introducing us two 'toddlerhood'

Lets just say he opened a gallon of pain dumped it in our ensuite and walked in it. After that he proceeded to run through the house while we tried to catch him. He managed to get paint on...

-the shag rug in our bedroom

-the shag rug in our living room

-allllllll over our hard wood

-one of our leather couches 

This was his way of saying 'hey, I'm almost two. What did you expect? No wildness?'

We threw him in the bath while we scrubbed (he was NOT pleased). Then Audrey decided she wanted to join him and we allowed her...not knowing she wasn't naked lol. She then dumped a bottle of body wash all over his body...-'s mostly through his hair....oh man. Body wash and hair. It's tough to get out...especially that much body wash. Brent and I laughed. Natural consequences.

Our natural consequence was the paint-we trusted a toddler in our ensuite and deserved a firm knock upside the head

Beckham's natural consequence usually involves his sister...she always finds a way to nicely 'punish' him lol.  

Those Duggers

18, 19, 20 kids in counting whatever great number that family is at. I get how they do it.

Love 

Patience

Prayer

&slight child slavery

I've been making the kids do chores and oh man I see the light. I only have two so I could see the benefits of having 19+ lol

That's right babies of mine you clean out that chicken coop, ill give you a cookie when you're done. Lets also savour today-Audrey will do just about anything for a 'penny' yup. She won't even remember  what a penny is when she is a teenager. 

No neighbours

There are days when I say it would be nice to live in a cul-de-sac with lots of kids so the kids would have lots of playmates.

Then I realize we have so many play dates already and if we had 'neighbours' they would have to witness our 'time outs' oh mercy. 

How do people parent in subdivisions or town houses. Is social services called regularly? I swear our time out time sounds like our children are 

A) being murdered 

B) murdering us

We have one neighbour that is close-ish and I sometimes wonder if they can hear our toddler meltdowns. Or hear me threatening to spank their bums. Oh mercy. We were not meant for hi-density living. 

Don't get me wrong it's not as frequent as many toddlers so we are blessed. But meltdowns are a regular thing with any toddler. I'm just glad I don't have to make eye contact with any neighbour after WW8 happened at our house 

What's a post without a picture of our little time out resistance 

Seven Years

Seven years Mr.Converse and I have been married. I feel like this next year  might be the best one yet.

For our anniversary we went to Seattle just us two for FOUR days. It was bliss. Did we do touristy things lol NOPE. We relaxed and recuperated. We ate at our favorite---the Cheesecake Factory!!! Did a lil shopping. I read TWO books. It was heaven. We felt so blessed to have that time to catch up and miss our babies and finish all those 'half conversations' you know the important ones were you get interrupted by toddlers. In fact just having a simple conversation was bliss. No chaos no food being thrown. 

We stayed at the Hyatt in bellevue. The breakfast is complimentary and out of this world. Bacon, sausage, waffles, eggs, pancakes, ham, hashbrowns, yogurt, cereal, pastries, toast...anything you want...they also have a omelet station where a person will make you an omelet exactly how you want it. Talk about continental breakfast.

They had coffee (Starbucks), tea, hot chocolate and flavoured water served all day so as you can imagine we indulged in that. 

They also had a indoor pool and hot tub that was a glorious place to relax and unwind...ya know after the stress of doing nothing all day. 

Marriage. I think it's such a beautiful gift. Brent still laughs when I tear up over the memory of someone telling me there wasn't marriage in heaven. It broke my heart and I choose ignorance is bliss because honestly there is no one I'd rather spend my eternity with. I also have some other heaven thoughts but I won't blog about those today. 

I am so grateful for the man God gave me. He is not perfect and makes me crazy sometimes (lets be real right?) but I would be so bored if he didn't. Makes for fun making up right? 7 years, so many adventures, so many countries we have visited, so many laughs, so many tickle fights, so many tears, so much learning and so much compromise. Our dreams are so beautifully intertwined together. I long for each day I get to spend with him.  He is my best friend and I am his. We at year 7 are still learning how to be better friends to one another and so much else. The one this I love is that we know we aren't perfect and we constantly are trying to do better. ---never stagnit---

He is the one my heart loves, he is the one I would die for in a second, he is the one I want to spend my evenings with. I love my girlfriends but this past year I have found peace in just being still. I am more content now then ever before just having a simple night with a bag of chips and our favorite show with my hubster. It's a great feeling. 

He has taught me so much about who I am, who I want to be, what I believe in and what the desires of my heart are: he kicks my butt and holds me accountable. His honesty is a rare gem and I value it so much. I just don't ask him if my butt looks fat ha ha.

If I was to be super honest. This past year has been a whirlwind. A lot to do with renos, a lot to do with stresses, a lot to do with adjustments and much more. We have spent a lot of time this year learning more about each other and how to be there for one another on hard days. I think looking back it was a hard year. It was simply beautiful in hind site  when I look at the growth in our love, commitment, and ability to care for one another. Sometimes it takes difficulty to stimulate growth. That has been this year. A challenge that was met, conquered and aced. 

I thank god for my husband. I'm not sure how he decided I would be this blessed but I am forever in awe of this gift he has given me-my husband.

The one I live for, laugh with & love.

2013.

Beckham's barfing adventure

I'm sure you're surprised that a blog about Beckham's Barfing adventures isn't a glamorous post. More a post about the mayhem and horror that we all knew was inevitable. 

Inevitable? Yes, yes indeed. Our kids almost NEVER get sick. A sniffle or fever that lasts 12 hours is about as bad as its gotten.

That came to a halt. The flu.

7pm-put Beckham to bed. He was asleep within 3 minutes

7:15 Brent and I watch movie 

10pm we go to bed

10:01pm the screams and gagging begin. We leap and run to Beckham's room. The horror that we find is indescribable. Or perhaps to graphic for a blog.

10:05pm the amount of times he has thrown up in this short amount of time is record breaking.

10:10pm we decade a plan. We had a feeling it was the flu so we decided to be smart. I took first shift. 10-12pm. He threw up every 8-10mins. 

***not only did he throw up but he tried to refuse to throw up in a bowl/bucket/sink/toilet. He would arch his back head butt and scream if you tried to force him. It was BRUTAL. He also would try and ask for a hug only to throw up in his desired position...ALL over you!!***

12-2am Brent took this shift...he said he only threw up every 30mins...lol...so that's not so shabby 

2-4am Sheena's shift...somehow he's throwing up every 15mins again. Seriously. 

4am I come back to bed with Beckham to give him to Brent for his shift...Brent is unawake-able. I have Beckham until 6am where he finally falls asleep...on top of me. Well that's not going to work.

6am Beckham is put back in his bed.

7:30am Audrey wakes up and runs into Beckham's room. Shoot me (Brent's at work...)

7:30am I try and feed Audrey breakfast and not feed Beckham. I almost lost my life...not feeding Beckham is the hardest thing I have ever encountered. He is my food beast.

9:30am I decide not to feed Audrey anymore (she had breakfast) lol poor child. Audrey and Beckham get freezies all day. No one is complaining. I however might die a slow painful death of exhaustion....how did I cope with newborns again?

There was random barf that day maybe 5-6 times nothing major. It was a 12 hour bug. 

Day 2

We play outside and Beckham is so dehydrated but I'm trying to pace him so he doesn't over do it. Well he gets ahold of he hose and guzzles for 5mins without me knowing. I get it away from him. We go inside. I'm disinfecting the house so no one else gets sick. The barfing has stopped. Beckham runs to me and wants a hug (I should have seen it coming). I bend down to hug him and he projectile tsunami barfs all over me. All over my freshly disinfected bathroom. Darn that hose. 

I know your curious. What did I smell like? Well I had been projectile barfed and sneak attack thrown up on so many times in 24 hours I never thought the smell would fade. Shower after shower I could still smell the rank smell of acidic freezies. Freezies will never be the same.

-------------

Remember my last post. Being sad about being late. Maybe a lil mad at God for 'toying' with me. I repent. Oh mercy. God gave me exactly what I needed...a fresh reminder why pregnancy and me aren friends. Vomit. So much vomit. 

When I wake up

When I wake up from my nap can we play Playdough and eat boogers?!-Audrey

How about just play Playdough?-Mommy

How about BOOGERS-Audrey

***Remeber the baby talk. The not knowing what they were saying? I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what she was trying to say when she was a baby anymore...it's frightening***hehehe